FRANK RICH: Why Libby's Pardon Is a Slam Dunk

[Veronica.Franco]

Why Libby’s Pardon Is a Slam Dunk

By FRANK RICH
EVEN by Washington’s standards, few debates have been more fatuous or wasted more energy than the frenzied speculation over whether President Bush will or will not pardon Scooter Libby. Of course he will.

A president who tries to void laws he doesn’t like by encumbering them with “signing statements” and who regards the Geneva Conventions as a nonbinding technicality isn’t going to start playing by the rules now. His assertion last week that he is “pretty much going to stay out of” the Libby case is as credible as his pre-election vote of confidence in Donald Rumsfeld. The only real question about the pardon is whether Mr. Bush cares enough about his fellow Republicans’ political fortunes to delay it until after Election Day 2008.

Either way, the pardon is a must for Mr. Bush. He needs Mr. Libby to keep his mouth shut. Cheney’s Cheney knows too much about covert administration schemes far darker than the smearing of Joseph Wilson. Though Mr. Libby wrote a novel that sank without a trace a decade ago, he now has the makings of an explosive Washington tell-all that could be stranger than most fiction and far more salable.

Mr. Libby’s novel was called “The Apprentice.” His memoir could be titled “The Accomplice.” Its first chapter would open in August 2002, when he and a small cadre of administration officials including Karl Rove formed the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a secret task force to sell the Iraq war to the American people. The climactic chapter of the Libby saga unfolded last week when the guilty verdict in his trial coincided, all too fittingly, with the Congressional appearance of two Iraq veterans, one without an ear and one without an eye, to recount their subhuman treatment at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

http://wealthyfrenchman.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-libbys-pardon-is-slam-dunk.html

[Diane R]

1. And this is why James Carville cannot be trusted: His wife.

Mary Matalin features prominently in this piece:

<snip>
"Mary Matalin, the former Cheney flack who served with Mr. Libby on WHIG and is now on the board of his legal defense fund (its full list of donors is unknown), has been especially vocal. “Scooter didn’t do anything,” she said. “And his personal record and service are impeccable.” What Mr. Libby did — fabricating nuclear threats at WHIG and then lying under oath when he feared that sordid Pandora’s box might be pried open by the Wilson case — was despicable. Had there been no WHIG or other White House operation for drumming up fictional rationales for war, there would have been no bogus uranium from Africa in a presidential speech, no leak to commit perjury about, no amputees to shut away in filthy rooms at Walter Reed.

Listening to Ms. Matalin and her fellow apparatchiks emote publicly about the punishment being inflicted on poor Mr. Libby and his family, you wonder what world they live in. They seem clueless about how ugly their sympathy for a conniving courtier sounds against the testimony of those wounded troops and their families who bear the most searing burdens of the unnecessary war WHIG sped to market."

<snip>

I don't understand how James Carville can be married to that woman, and still be a trusted advisor to Democrats.

[Cobalt-60]

2. I cant understand how Carville could be a trusted advisor

while married to that woman.
If I were Democratic Security Chief I'd have yanked his trusted status 1 second after hearing "I do".

[bemildred]

3. It's not hard to understand once you figure out that some

"Democrats" are in cahoots with some Republicans, they are really on the same side. In other words their opposition to each other is fake. And Carville's situation is just evidence of that. Could you see a real progressive being an advisor to Bush? But once you see Carville is a player in a political stage show designed to make us think we have representation when we do not, it all makes sense, and you can almost predict what he is going to say next.

[earthlover]

4. Love is a many splendored thing....

...and it doesn't always follow the patterns most of us would expect. Sometimes opposites attract. Pardon me, but I don't think these two are the only married couple who disagree with each other politically.

It doesn't seem logical to me to suspect Carville's Democratic credentials for being married to a Republican any more than we would suspect his wife's credentials for being a Democrat. Would any of us say she must be some sort of Democrat because she is married to him? HA! Of course not! But that is the same illogic we make if we assume he is somehow tainted by being married to a Republican.

Believe it or not...this might really be hard to swallow....but some folks can maintain their individual identities and still be married. Some folks....believe it or not....can accept their partner for who they are and not rush in and try to make them a carbon copy. Pardon me, but I think accepting the other person for who he/she is is part and parcel of mature love.

Now, it may be true that we might have some logical problems with Carville's positions. But, come on. Husbands...and wives...are NOT just the extensions of their spouses. Sometimes we need to judge someone by his/her own merits, not just blame everything on who he/she is married to.

Where will this illogic end? Should we assume that a Protestant man married to a Catholic or a Jew or a Moslem is any less Protestant for marrying her? Should we assume a man who drives a Ford is any less loyal to Fords if he marries a woman who drives a Chevy? Should we assume a man who loves dogs is any less of a dog lover if he marries a woman who loves cats or parakeets? Should we assume a man who likes PCs is somehow suspect if he marries a woman with an Apple computer? Where does this nonsense end?

People fall in love. They don't always fall in love with people who are clones of themselves. Get over it.

[bemildred]

5. I don't suspect his Democratic credentials because of his marriage.

I suspect his progressive credentials because of things he has said and done. Anybody can be a Democrat or a Republican, it costs nothing, and it doesn't mean much in itself. It's like a new hairstyle. I'm just saying that when you look at the positions he takes and the things he does, his marriage doesn't seem that odd. I am over it.

[springhill]

6. You are so right on this.........

I have thought the exact same thing for a long time now.

[EVDebs]

7. Not so fast. Waxman's hearings re Libby may turn something up

Connect the dots to the 'Khan Job' article by Greg Palast re an NSA "policy shift pre-9-11" and you have an interesting thread of non-proliferation projects by the CIA being shut down in order for war plans to be put into play, circumventing constitutional means of financing and Congressional oversight.

Govt in secret wasn't something the Founding Fathers and the Constitution would countenance.

In other words, Treason goes beyond just mere high crimes and misdemeanors. This wasn't about Plame/Wilson, it was about Brewster Jennings and Khan and what was going on in background with each.

[veracity]

8. Libby's WHIG group details here.

Rich finally mentions the WHIG group....formed before the invasion of Iraq, to sell the American people a war. This story was totally ignored by the mainstream media...and probably was one of the most important revelations about how the war was a pack of lies to be 'sold' to the public.

Libby...and Rice and a slew of others in the administration were given the job of being the nation's SNAKE OIL MERCHANTS. If you have no idea what this is all about....the group was exposed at http://tvnewslies with all its lurid details.

Here's the full story:
http://tvnewslies.org/html/the_white_house_iraq_group.html

[EVDebs]

9. Sorry, but the WHIGs were really around pre 9-11

Document reveals Nixon plan to seize Arab oil fields
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/01/02/MNG8G427D61.DTL

These DoD plans were around since 1973. And whom praytell within the Bush administration were around at that time in Nixon's team ? Cheney and Rumsfeld no less.

Just substitute "Iraq" when reading Saudi Arabia in these warplans.

LIHOP or MIHOP becomes almost inevitable or this is the most incompetent administration of corrupt imbiciles ever collected. Not a very pretty choice for GOPers to swallow, eh ?

[ThoughtCriminal]

10. It might be a mistake to pardon too soon.

Most likely, this will be put off as long as possible.

A legal question that may help. If Libby is given a pardon, would that prevent him from claiming the 5th Amendment when called to testify before Congressional committees? It would be better to wait on the pardon so that he can commit perjury safely during any hearings, knowing that the pardon awaits.